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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
The power of prayer
By Henrylito D. Tacio
Regarding Henry
"OUR Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."
The above is the Lord's Prayer as written in Matthew 9-13. Jesus taught us how we should pray: "When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen."
"Prayer is talking with God and telling Him you love Him," C. Neil Strait explained. "Conversing with God about all the things that are important in life, both large and small, and being assured that He is listening to what God might want to say to you."
Augustine declared, "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." To which another said, "A day without prayer is a day without blessing, and a life without prayer is a life without power."
D.L. Moody points out, "The Christian on his knees sees more than the philosopher on tiptoe." Norman Harrison in "His in a Life of Prayer" tells how Charles Inglis, while making the voyage to America a number of years ago, learned from the devout and godly captain of an experience, which he had had but recently with George Muller of Bristol.
It seems that they had encountered a very dense fog. Because of it, the captain had remained on the bridge continuously for twenty-four hours, when Mr. Muller came to him and said, "Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec (Canada) on Saturday afternoon."
When informed that it was impossible, Mr. Muller replied: "Very well. If the ship cannot take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chartroom and pray."
The captain continues the story thus: "I looked at that man of God and thought to myself, what lunatic asylum could that man have come from. I ever heard such a thing as this. 'Mr. Muller,' I said, 'do you know how dense this fog is?' No, he replied, my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life."
He knelt down and prayed one of those simple prayers, and when he had finished, I was going to pray; but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to pray. "Firstly," he said, "because you do not believe God will, and secondly, I believe God has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it."
"I looked at him, and Mr. Muller said, 'Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up and open the door, and you will find that the fog has gone.' I got up and the fog was indeed gone. George Muller was in Quebec Saturday afternoon for his engagement." If you pray and your prayer is not answered, don't fret. God answers all our prayers; sometimes, you have to wait.
A young woman, home from college for the weekend, was complaining about how tough the exams were. She was especially worried about the one coming up the next week. Her mother gave her the standard lecture, saying, "You should try studying this time."
The young woman took her advice and studied intensely for three days, only coming out of her studies to eat and sleep. When she came home the following weekend, her mother asked her how she had done.
"Mom," she replied, "I don't know why I bothered to study. That was the easiest test I've ever taken." Isn't it funny how, after finding how well prayer and meditation works for us, we decide things are going so well we don't need them?
Several studies have been done proving that prayer can heal. In recent years, researchers are investigating whether the prayer of others can also do the same. Dr. Herbert Benson and his colleagues at the Harvard Medical School in the United States--studying coronary-bypass patients--and Dr. Dale Matthews, associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington--studying people with rheumatoid arthritis, are trying to confirm findings of an oft-quoted 1988 study by cardiologist Dr. Randolph Byrd.
Byrd divided 393 heart patients in San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center into two groups. One was prayed for by Christians around the country; the other did not receive prayers. Patients did not know which group they belonged to. The group prayed for had fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia, fewer cardiac arrests, less congestive heart failure and needed fewer antibiotics.
"Don't pray to escape trouble," Sam Shoemaker concludes. "Don't pray to be comfortable in your emotions. Pray to do the will of God in every situation. Nothing else is worth praying for."
For feedback, write me at tasyo2002@yahoo.com
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (October 18, 2005 issue)
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